Calipari describes what Kentucky needs to once again be the ‘gold standard’

It’s hard to be the ‘gold standard’ of college basketball without having made the final four in seven years.

Kentucky coach John Calipari who has claimed despite his program’s final four drought that his program is the ‘gold standard,’ is finally starting to realize that maybe his program is no longer that.

UK has been passed by Kansas, who won the 2022 NCAA Tournament as the program with the most wins in college basketball history, the only top-five recruit the program has signed since 2016, Shaedon Sharpe, announced he will enter the NBA Draft before ever playing in a game for the Wildcats, and the fan base is as tired as ever after its team lost to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in the first round of tournament back in March.

How does Calipari bring back Kentucky to being the ‘gold standard’? How does he start signing the top five ranked recruits again like he did in the first half of his tenure in Lexington? He offered suggestions in a radio appearance with SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum at the SEC Meetings in Destin, Florida.

“Our recruiting, and again Mitch (Barnhart) and I are meeting because my thing is it’s unacceptable if we’re not the gold standard in facilities and everything else,” Calipari explained. “Not acceptable if midnight madness isn’t something that’s talked about for a month. Unacceptable. We need the camp out going again.

“Here’s what I say. Basketball’s different than football. Football, you need the calvary. Basketball, one guy, can make a difference in winning the whole thing, getting to the Final 4. One guy. Because it’s not 80. To have everything the gold standard, we’ve always been that. We’ve slipped a little bit in some of the facilities. I’m not saying our facilities are bad. They’re not bad. They’re just not the gold standard. Mitch and I are going to sit down and talk and say what’s the path? How do we get that going to anyone that walks on our campus and see’s any facilities knows ‘wow, look at this.’ We’re going to get there.”

Facility upgrades and an enhanced Big Blue Madness experience. That’s why Calipari feels Kentucky is no longer the gold standard.

Is he right that both of these areas need improvement? Probably. The $30 million Joe Craft Center hasn’t had all that many upgrades since it opened in 2007 and since then, rival programs have enhanced their facilities.

Big Blue Madness is a great family outing, but maybe it’s not as fun for recruits to watch corny introductions of players, three-point contests and purposely low-quality scrimmages.

Another way Calipari knows Kentucky has a path of getting back to the ‘gold standard is NLI, the transfer portal and all other new factors playing into college sports today.

“I would say what’s next and how can we be first at it? What’s next? What’s out there? What are we allowed to do,” Calipari said. I’ll say this if you care about the kids and you truly care and you’re authentic about it you’ll always be able to go on because they’ll know you’re about them.”

Can Kentucky get back to being the gold standard as soon as this winter?

Calipari thinks so.

“Jacob’s (Toppin) is coming back. Oscar’s (Tshiebwe coming back. We’ve got a team, Sahvir (Wheeler), CJ’s (Fredrick) healthy, you’ve got Chris (Livingston) and Cason (Wallace), you’ve got Antonio (Reeves) transferred in, you’ve still got Daimion (Collins), you’ve got Lance (Ware), who I’m really excited about. Adou (Thiero) comes to us from Pittsburgh, so we’ve got a terrific group.

“We’ve got to make everything the gold standard, what it’s been and you know what? Let’s go on and do some crazy stuff which we have a chance to do.”